Here are twenty (!!) games to reinforce basic bow hand posture. These games are ideal for a Suzuki pre-twinkle class of 3–6 year olds.
1. Simon Says
This classic children’s game can easily be mapped onto any posture game. Give students instructions like the ones listed below and make sure to say “Simon Says,” before each one. Sprinkle in a few tricky instructions without “Simon Says” to see who is listening.
Pick up your bow
Build a bow hold with your bow hand
Land your bow on your … (head, shoulder, belly button, knee, etc.)
Stretch the bow up to the sky!
Land the screw on the ground
Draw … (letters, circles, fruit sizes, etc.)
Stir soup
Shake out your cowhand!
Shake your neighbors bow hand
If your students aren’t old enough to understand Simon Says, you can easily turn this into a follow-the-instructions game where the challenging instructions are the trick itself.
2. Stir the Soup
Students start by holding their bows with great posture. Together the whole class stirs on the horizontal plan with the bows as if stirring a big pot of soup. Move around the entire group, asking each student which ingredient they would like to add to the soup — no ingredient is too weird! I’ve had spaghetti, Reece’s, mashed potato soup with my students before.
Variation #1: halfway through have students start to stir the opposite direction or faster slower depending on the ingredient
Variation #2: recount together as a group which student brought which ingredient
Variation #3: before you start set an imaginary colored skittle (student chooses color) on the tip of their bow. Tell students to keep their bows very straight and balanced so the skittle doesn’t fall in the soup! Eat the imaginary skittle together at the end.
3. Up Like A Rocket
This classic bow game/song is sung to the tune of Twinkle using the following lyrics and matching actions. Start with a well built bow hold hovering in front of belly button.
Up like a rocket (bow moves up toward ceiling)
Down like the rain (down towards ground)
Back and forth like a Choo — Choo — train (side to side in front of belly button)
Round and round like the great big sun (big circle around face)
Land on hand check pinkie check thumb (set on flat palm, look for bent thumb and curved pinkie)
Up like a rocket
Down like the rain
Back and forth like a Choo — Choo — train
Many people sing it like this. Good because you can check posture and students won’t get discombobulated by landing anywhere other than their hand.
Variation
Up like a rocket (bow moves up toward ceiling)
Down like the rain (down towards ground)
Back and forth like a Choo — Choo — train (side to side in front of belly button)
Round and round like the great big sun (big circle around face)
Round and round like a great big drum (big circles horizontally in front of belly (soup style))
Up like a rocket
Down like the rain
Land on the place where you keep you brain (land screw on top of head)
4. Pass the Cup
Another classic! Gather students in a circle with formed bow hands. Set an upside down cup on the tip of your bow and pass it to a student next to you. The students will pass it all the way around the circle until it makes it back to you. Make sure students aren’t passing unless they have masterful control of their bow hands.
Variation #1: change the size/type of object being passed. Sarah Cummings has a floppy hat from a teddy bear she uses which is far easier than a cup. I’ve used a mason jar ring with Book 4–5 students and it was quite the challenge.
Variation #2: aim for controlled speed. Time how fast they can do it with a watch. You or your pianist can play a piece and students can try to finish faster than the piece.
Variation #3: use fun circle passing rules as related to sound cues. For example if the teacher claps students have to reverse the direction. If music stops, they stop passing. If music gets faster they pass faster; if music slows down, they slow down.
5. Ring of Fire
Students start with a formed bow hold. Teacher, parent, or another student forms a circle with their hands which they hover above the student’s bow tip. The student tries to lift their bow through the circled hands and then come back out of the circle without touching the edges! If they touch they need to start over.
Variation #1: Change the hand size based on ease for the student
Variation #2: Use a solid, circular object such as an open frisbee disc, a mason jar, or a roll of tape. You can even decorate it with flames for effect!
Variation #3: Play any piece while they do this, but Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash is especially fun (:
6. Draw Animal Picture on Board for Repetitions
This is a simple way to do disguised repetitions with your group class. Set up a clearly defined challenge for students, such as everyone building a bow hold with a curved pinkie or doing a Variation A rhythm on their shoulder with bows going the correct direction. Each time the group does one repetition of this skill you draw the body part of an anima on the board. After each rep one student gets to guess what the animal you are drawing is. Once the animal is guessed you switch to a different challenge so they can play again.
You have no idea how motivated your class will be to do repetitions! This is also a great game to play in one-on-one lessons.
7. Wheels on the Bus
Adapt the age old children’s song for Twinkle class. Make the motions of Wheels on the Bus with your bow hands. I’ve described a few below, but use your creativity!
Wheels go round — go in a circle in front of face (great big sun style)
Doors open and close- tip points up, elbow stays in place by side, bow hand moves from belly button out 90 degrees
Window open and shut — land tip in violin hand so bow is horizontal, lift bow up and down
Driver “move on back” — tip stays pointing up, bow hand tracks over violin shoulder
Windshield wiper swish — wobble tip side to side with bow hand in same place (swishing)
8. Bow Hold Doctor
This is a great way to take a breather from high-intensity activities. Have students sit down with bow quietly resting on the floor.
You, at the front of the room, make an atrocious bow hold with many posture issues. Have one student at a time offer a correction either verbally or coming up to the room and physically showing you. Do this until your bow hold is sufficiently corrected.
Variation — make an almost okay bow hand but with only one glaring posture issue to focus their attention on one item at a time.
9. Rock vs Marshmallow
This game can last as long as the students energy allows and gives you a nice way to discuss the concept of relaxation.
Away from the bows have form their hands into balls. Have them squeeze their hands as tight as possible — hard like a rock. Then have them let go of that tightness and be soft like a marshmallow. Translate this onto the bow. Have students form their bow holds and then instruct hard like rock then soft like marshmallow.
You can have a discussion about which makes us more tired more quickly, and which is easier to do other bow games with. Then make the connection that rock is tense and marshmallow is relaxed.
10. Writing with the bow
Students form a bow hold. With their bow hand they write letters or numbers in the air with you.
Variation #1: students spell their name
Variation #2: students guess what letter you are drawing (you might have to draw it backwards for their perspective)
Variation #3: instead of the bow hand use the tip to draw on the ceiling
11. Finger taps
Form bow holds. Instruct students to lift certain fingers off the bow (all will work except thumb). You can even ask for combinations of fingers lifted such as 2+3 or 1+4. This is a great way to promote flexibility and balance while reinforcing finger numbers.
12. Draw different size circles (which fruit?)
With a formed bow hold ask students which sized fruits they would like to draw. Draw circles in front of your faces the size of watermelons, apples, and itty-bitty grapes. Allow them to be really creative, any size fruit will work!
Variation — you draw in the air and allow them to guess the fruit
13. Journey to Parent and Back
One way to split up the group class if energy is lagging is having children take a journey to their parents and then come back. For a bow game you can have students form a bow hold, walk to their parents to have bent thumb and curved pinkie inspected, and then walk back to their lines.
14. Teacher play, student land screw
This is a nice musicianship and movement game. Make sure all violins are cleared from the floor. Students form a nice bow hold and wait for you to start playing. You perform a recognizable piece with clear phrases (Twinkle, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Long Long Ago). While you are playing students may wander around the room, but when you come to a phrase ending they must land the screw of their bow on a flat surface (ground or table).
Variation — have students move to the speed/style of the music itself
15. Variation Repetition Game
This is the absolute simplest of all repetition games. For each repetition layer on a silly challenge the student must overcome while maintaining great posture. For example, you could have students practice forming bow holds while (1) sticking their tongue out (2) standing on one foot (3) closing their eyes (4) turning around in a circle (5) sitting down on the ground (6) the lights are off (7) singing Twinkle. The list could go on forever — which is the point!
Variation — have students come up with the silly variations
16. Where is the frog
This is the sister activity to “Where is the Scroll” on violin with a fun twist. Have students sit down close enough to where they can see you. You sit at the front of the room with your bow laying flat on the ground in front of you. Sing, “Where is the frog?” on Do. Together students respond “Here is the frog” on Do while pointing to the frog. You then sing “Where is the _____?” (any bow part except hair) on Re. Then they respond. You do this all the way up the scale until you get back to Do and sing, “Where is the hair?” And students respond emphatically, “Don’t touch the hair!!”
Students tend to love this game — especially shouting at the end.
17. Monkey hanging from branch (with parent partners)
Students find a partner (either their parent, you the teacher, or another student if they are old enough). The helping partner holds the bow and the student drapes their hand down from the stick, hanging like a monkey would from a branch. You can go around to inspect how swingy and relaxed their monkey arms.
Variation — if you want to do repetitions of this, a fun way is to use a barrel of monkeys. Hang one monkey for every time your students perform one hanging arm.
18. Out the door the birdie goes
Students build a bow hold and land the hair of the bow on their violin shoulder. As you sing the lyrics, “Out the door the birdie goes” everyone does a down bow motion, opening up at the elbow. Then you say, “In he comes to blow his nose” and everyone does an up bow motion back to the square of the arm.
Continue this pattern until you run out of words that rhyme with “goes.” (Nose, rose, toes, flows, rows, mows, clothes, crows, sews, chose, froze, Lowe’s, knows, doze.)
Variation — have parents make up the lyrics for the group
19. Bow parade
Students form bow hands and follow the teacher on a parade (single file line) around the classroom and even out into the hallway/outdoors if your teaching setting allows for it. Parents and students love this and it often shakes things up nicely!
Variation — Do whatever I do. You do silly things like turn in a circle or touch the screw of your bow to an inanimate object and the whole line copies you.
20. Blast off with cheerios
Make sure this is the LAST thing you do in class! Have students form a bow hold and point their tips up to the ceiling. You check their posture and then land a cheerio on their bow tip. They hold that cheerio until everyone has one. Then count down from 10 and on “blast off” everyone thrusts their bow in the air so the cheerio goes flying. Try to catch the cheerio in your mouth, or pick up and have them exchange for a fresh cheerio to eat.
Super fun but can get wild so do at your own risk!
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